Comments

CrunchyCon

>>>"The CapX2020 project is designed to transmit electricity between Brookings County, S.D., and Hampton to help meet growing demand for power in the state."

Two qualifications need to be added to this statement for accuracy: 1) Electricity demand is actually way down from the projections that were used in 2008 to justify the project at the MN Public Utilities Commission. At present, demand is not really "growing". 2) A chunk of the power on this line will not be delivered here in MN but will be sold to Wisconsin and points east (at profit for the CapX utilities).

CrunchyCon

Independent, rather than just repeat what CapX's PR guy says, I'd like to see you do some local investigative reporting, now that the line is near. Typically CapX has been providing one-time payments to local governments upon construction, and there's an expectation of ongoing property tax revenues that CapX will be paying to the county. What are the $$ figures on those, and what do our county and township officials plan to do with the money?

In addition, talk to some of the people in our community most closely affected by the line. There was a lot of hullabaloo during routing proceedings and many were worried about potential impacts. For those now dealing with them, are they ok? Were they treated fairly & compensated adequately? What % were condemned under eminent domain & why? I'm aware of some that are happy and some that aren't. You might be able to get a pretty interesting article if you did a little digging...